


KuroFay Collection

by mostladylikeladythateverladied



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-03 05:58:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17278400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostladylikeladythateverladied/pseuds/mostladylikeladythateverladied
Summary: A collection of KuroFay drabbles originally posted to tumblr. Ranging from explicit to SFW and from fluff to angst. Chapter-specific warnings included.





	1. Cooking

**Author's Note:**

> Kurogane is hopeless at cooking, and Fay comes to his rescue.

“Fuck! Shit! How do I…Shit!”

Fay uneasily glanced at the wall, from which the noises of distress were coming from. Or rather, from the apartment on the other side of the wall. He could also smell something truly foul coming in through his open window, wafting over from the source of the yelling.

It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. A kitchen travesty was happening next door.

Fay let out a small giggle as more swearing reached his ears. Taking pity on the poor man, Fay exited his apartment and knocked on his neighbor’s door.

“Fucking…wait!” the voice within yelled. Fay rocked back and forth on his heels.

The door opened, and the smell of burnt food struck Fay like a tidal wave, but he had much more important things to take notice of. Like how sexy his neighbor was.

Fay was tall, but the man was even taller and larger than Fay in every way. Where Fay was light on his feet and lean in muscle, this man put some brick walls to shame. His arms were thick and his chest was broad, and if he didn’t smell like singed meat, Fay would have liked to snuggle himself into that chest. With arms like that, he had to give  _great_  hugs.

“You sounded like you could use some help,” Fay offered, making a show of pinching his nose to defend himself against the smell.

The man looked over his shoulder, and nodded grimly when he turned back.

“I guess I could.”

* * *

 

It became a habit after that. Every time the sound of cursing came through their connecting wall, Fay swooped in to save his hopeless neighbor, who was named Kurogane and looked amazing shirtless. Fay knew that after a rescue mission devolved into a food fight and they were both slathered in spaghetti sauce at the end of it. Fay felt truly blessed that day.

He found himself lingering in Kurogane’s apartment instead of heading back after keeping the man’s home from burning down. They ate together more nights than not.

“My brother’s the amazing chef, not me,” Fay revealed one peaceful evening as they ate homemade pasta, “He’s studying in Italy right now and won’t be back until next year.”

“You live together?” Kurogane huffed through a mouthful of noodles. Fay leaned over to swipe a bit of sauce from his chin. Kurogane muttered his thanks.

“Yeah, always have. We’re twins, so I don’t have any memories of a time where we weren’t together.”

Kurogane arched an eyebrow, catching the sorrowful tone Fay’s voice had taken on. He realized, with quite sudden clarity, why Fay was so willing to show up at his neighbor’s door.

He didn’t say anything though. He had learned that personal details about Fay only came once in a blue moon, and he knew not to pry. It just made the man run away.

He didn’t want Fay to run away.

* * *

 

Kurogane was a disaster in the kitchen, and all of Fay’s efforts to teach him were inevitably forgotten by the next day. The only evenings Fay didn’t find himself in Kurogane’s company were the days he was off visiting his parents.

Out of the blue, Kurogane asked Fay to join him on one such visit.

“I told my mother about you,” he explained sheepishly, “and she wants to meet you.”

One thing Fay had learned about Kurogane over the past months was that he was a total mama’s boy. He’d told Fay time and again how great a cook his mother was, which Fay questioned internally, since he couldn’t fathom a skilled chef producing a son so utterly hopeless with food.

He was proven wrong, however, when she turned out to be as fantastic a cook as Kurogane claimed.

“How is this possible?” he asked her over a plate piled high with juicy, delicious pork cutlets.

“I really don’t know,” she returned, laughing brightly. Kurogane’s father, who Kurogane was the spitting image of, laughed with his wife and ruffled Kurogane’s hair playfully.

Fay felt so at home he might as well be eating dinner with his brother and not these relative strangers. He was welcomed by this loving trio of genuinely good people without reservation, even though all he’d done was feed their son.

Kurogane cleared the table and washed the dishes while his mother and father took Fay out into the living room for tea and talk. He should have been uncomfortable, he usually disliked meeting new people, but he just couldn’t be unhappy in the presence of this wonderful family.

When Yuui came home, he’d bring him over here to visit, too. They both could use some parental love in their lives.

“He’s quite taken with you,” Kurogane’s mother told him, sipping her tea delicately with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Fay blushed, shaking his head, “He just likes me for my food,” he insisted.

“Child, I know my son. He doesn’t make friends easily, and the few he has, he doesn’t invite here. You’re quite special to him.”

* * *

 

Kurogane’s parents left Fay and Kurogane with the excuse that they wanted to spend some time alone on the porch, when Fay knew full well they actually wanted to give Fay and Kurogane time alone.

They sat on the couch, side by side, when Fay gathered his bravery.

“If you want to ask me out, just do it. I’ll say yes.”

Kurogane blushed, which was painfully adorable on the big brick wall of a man.

“Will you have dinner with me sometime?” he asked, his voice an embarrassed whisper.

Fay leaned over and pecked the man’s heated cheek.  _So cute I could just eat_ him _up for dinner_.

 


	2. Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fay can send himself down beneath the ground to find what's hidden there. He looks down, and something looks back up at him.

Fay was descending, traveling  _down down down_  into the dirt. His body still stood on the surface, but he was not there. He was  _down_  and  _deep_.

He extended his senses outwards, a feeling that had long since become familiar to him. He could not see nor hear nor smell but he could  _sense_.

Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Stone.

Fay passed through it as easily as the dirt, and felt it as he flew past. Stone blocks packed together, sealed up so tightly the dirt from above could not slip through.

Stone. Then, emptiness.

An open space. Large, so large Fay did not know where the bottom was. He stretched and stretched and could not find an end. So he went further down and felt.

Empty. Chains. Formed not of metal but of will. Then…

_You knew there were bodies in the basement. Your parents didn’t believe you._

Fay was screaming when he returned to his body.

* * *

 

Syaoran had heard of Fay Fluorite. Every archaeologist and student aspiring to be one, as Syaoran was, had heard that name.

What began life being dismissed as a hoax became hailed as the eighth wonder of the world. A man that could astral project, or something like it, into the ground and always know exactly what lay beneath. He’d saved teams from falling into underground caverns and had discovered dozens of long lost tombs by pure accident.

Syaoran had watched footage of him at dig sites, but Fay had never reacted as he did today.

He had stood barefoot and still as a statue in the middle of the dig site, as he always did, and then he was screaming. Syaoran barely could make out the words, “Don’t dig here! You can’t dig here!” before the man screamed himself into unconsciousness.

He could hear the sounds of the work crew continuing to dig outside the medical tent, despite Fay's warnings. There was no stopping the dig, Syaoran knew. Fay brought more intrigue rather than the fear he'd tried to illicit.

Fay’s eyes fluttered open when Syaoran exchanged the cool cloth on his forehead for another.

“You have to stop,” he murmured dizzily.

“Why?” Syaoran asked.

“He wants to sleep. He doesn’t want to be awake in a world where he’s alone.”

“What does that mean? Who wants to sleep?”

But Fay was unconscious again and said nothing to explain himself.

* * *

 

_You are alone, too._

**_Yes, I am. I’m not supposed to be._ **

_You weren’t born alone._

**_No, I wasn’t. But he died._ **

_You knew his body was one of the ones in the school’s basement, but no one believed you until the school was demolished. He was under the concrete, along with the rest._

**_…_ **

_I’m hurting you. I’m sorry._

**_It’s alright. You didn’t mean to. Somehow, I know you didn’t mean to._ **

_They never found his killer, but I can._

**_Why would you do that for me?_ **

_Because we don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m going to wake up. I can’t stop them. If I have to wake up, I don’t want to be alone. I will let you know me the way I know you. I know everything about you, and I love you._

**_I know you do. I can feel that you do. But I haven’t even seen you._ **

_Humans. So preoccupied with looks._

**_She found you, just after you came to be. She was the first thing you saw. Oh, oh, you were just trying to protect her. But they burned her at the stake, so you went underground, chained yourself down and went to sleep. I’m so sorry._ **

_They saw in her a witch, not the kind young woman she was. In me, they saw a monster, so I became a monster. I’m going to wake up now, come to me?_

* * *

 

Fay awoke to the fading feelings of the beast deep under the ground lingering in his bones. Tentative hope, a dash of insecurity, and an overwhelming love.

No one had loved Fay like that, loved him just for being alive, since his brother died and was buried in the foundation of their middle school by a serial killer stalking the students.

A single act of violence rendered Fay completely and utterly alone. The same had befallen his newfound lover. Fay could feel him stirring with every inch the archaeologists dug deeper.

Fay was not surprised when they found skeletons with claw marks gouged into them. He felt no sympathy for them after knowing what they’d done to earn the beast’s wrath.

They punched through the layer of stone, then something punched back.

Fay sat on the edge of the pit, waiting, when through the hole into the cavernous space, a massive eye the color of spilled blood blinked out.

The beast allowed the pit to clear. Fay felt him lingering just beneath the surface, his massive form coiled and waiting to emerge. Screaming, panicked archaeologists and laborers scrambled to escape, not knowing they were in no danger.

Once no one would be hurt by the action, the beast smashed through the prison it built for itself and saw the sun for the first time in centuries.

A dragon emerged from the ground, massive, winged, sharp of tooth and claw and black of scale.

Fay reached out a hand to the beast, and a name came to him.

_Kurogane_

**_I love you, too. Let’s never be alone again._ **


	3. Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fay is terrified of flying and Kurogane is less annoyed with him than he expected.

Kurogane hated flying.

He hated being trapped in a giant metal machine and placing his life in the hands of the pilots. He hated being sat next to a screaming child or a business man trying to nap on his shoulder or a young lady desperate enough to try flirting with him on a plane. He hated the disgusting complementary peanuts.

But his cousin was graduating and he had to fly out to see her. The whole family was going to be there, just as they were for Kurogane’s graduation and it was only fair he make the trip for her as she’d done for him, don’t be such a grump, so on and so forth.

At least he wasn’t seated next to a child or someone looking particularly tired. The small plane had only two seats side by side, and Kurogane’s flying partner was a scrawny blonde man who was completely alert.

Well, this might not be Hell on Earth, after all. So long as he didn’t try to…

“Good afternoon!”

…make conversation.

Kurogane grunted blandly as he sat down and strapped in, projecting as much negativity as he could. The man didn’t notice in the slightest.

“it’s a lovely day, isn’t it? No wind at all, so we shouldn’t have much turbulence, don’t you think?”

The man was doing his best to sound chipper and happy, but here was a strained undertone in his voice. A tension he couldn’t completely conceal.

Well, shit. He was stuck next the the worst kind of flyer; the kind terrified of flying.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Kurogane grunted back. Hopefully, some assuring words could calm the man down. They didn’t.

“Do you think they have any ginger ale? I know it doesn’t actually settle your stomach much, but it’s a placebo effect thing. Which I guess won’t work since I know it’s a placebo effect, and it won’t work if you know it’s a placebo, right? I didn’t eat anything before getting on the plane, so don’t worry, I won’t throw up! There’s really nothing good to eat at the airport is there? It’s all chain fast food and places that aren’t good enough to get restaurants anywhere other than the airport. I hear there are fancy airports with five-star dining establishments in them, but I’ve never seen one. Have you? I don’t go to many airports. I don’t fly much, but I have to today. My brother is getting married, and he lives in Italy, and flying is the only way to get there from Japan. My brother is a chef, he’s  _amazing_! He’s been featured in magazines! Do you read food magazines? I do. I cook, but I’m not as good as my brother. He almost wanted to cater his own wedding, because his standards for food are  _crazy_  high and he doesn’t trust other chefs to get it right. His fiancee only just convinced him to hire someone else to do it, and only because he had 1000 other things to worry about. I’m his best man and I know him better than anyone, so I’m going to help him arrange everything. He’s so stressed out! I hope taking on some of the responsibilities will make it easier on him. I plan on doing everything I can to make his wedding spectacular! What are you flying to Italy for?”

Kurogane barely registered the question. The endless talking didn’t cease the other times the man asked something, and he didn’t expect it this time. Maybe the man was just out of breath.

“My cousin’s graduation,” he answered shortly. This time, the man got the message when Kurogane gave no further details.

“Oh, I see.”

He went silent, and turned away to look out the window. The man’s blue,  _very blue_ , eyes widened when he realized they’d taken off during his babbling. He stiffened, then swiftly shut the window.

He fidgeted in his seat, fiddled with the air conditioner, browsed through the in-flight movies but didn’t pick anything to watch. Kurogane was at the end of his rope after a half hour of it.

“…She’s graduating high school. A private girls’ school in Italy. She wants to be a fashion designer and has an internship with some big name in the industry.”

The man looked at him, and his smile slowly became less manic. He gazed in fond appreciation at Kurogane. Even if he was doing it out of irritation, he was trying to distract the man, and the man realized as much.

“I don’t know anything about fashion, so if you name drop the internship, it won’t mean a thing to me. But that’s amazing, an opportunity like that right out of school!”

“Yeah,” Kurogane replied, realized that wasn’t enough, and continued. “What kind of chef is your brother?”

“He specializes in Italian cuisine, but he can cook anything! I was really bad at eating healthy as a kid, so he learned to cook to keep me from dying of malnutrition.”

The man laughed, but Kurogane didn’t find much amusement in the morbid joke. As scrawny as he was, Kurogane imagined eating well was still a problem for him.

The conversation continued, and it wasn’t nearly as painful and it should have been. Once he was no longer panicking, the man was quite funny and charming. He had dozens of anecdotes about growing up with his twin, and Kurogane returned with stories of his own childhood sans siblings.

The hours flew by, and Kurogane almost regretted saying goodbye to the man after they landed without learning at least his name. Or his phone number. 

Ah, well. They weren’t bound to be anything more than two strangers on a plane.

* * *

 

Tomoyo’s graduation was being catered by a local five-star restaurant. Kurogane knew the chef was going to be married soon, knew he specialized in Italian cuisine but could cook anything, and knew his brother was a chatterbox and terrified of flying.

After the graduation ceremony, he learned the chef’s brother was named Yuui, and he was an  _amazing_  kisser.


	4. Just breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fay falls and Kurogane goes with him. Warnings for moderate violence.

Kurogane saw the white cloth hanging from the monster’s teeth, saw the splatters of blood on the ground, and he was gone. Lost to the fury, to the despair, to the overwhelming suffering he’d only felt once before. He sank into it and didn’t want to emerge again, not back into a world where Fay was-

He needed to  _kill kill kill_  until everything in this world was dead, so every last living thing felt the same loss he did. So this world could be punished for taking Fay from him.

The monster with Fay’s torn robes in its mouth died first, and the hoard following it died one by one. Kurogane’s blade shorn limbs from bodies and he was drenched in blood. He couldn’t smell it nor taste the splatters that touched his tongue. He felt nothing but  _agony_.

Syaoran had seen this once before, in memories he wasn’t meant to witness. He stayed far away and watched with tears on his cheeks as Kurogane decimated the monsters. He knelt in the dirt and silently cried, letting Kurogane scream their shared despair to the world.

Mokona was shaking on Syaoran’s shoulder, confused and frightened. She didn’t know what to do, how to help, how to heal this hurt. She didn’t think she could ever smile or laugh again with Fay gone.

They hadn’t seen Fay fall, but he’d seen the monsters surround Fay, seen the light of his magic flare up, then die away. Seen the monster turn with Fay’s clothes in its teeth and blood on its lips.

Kurogane cut his way through to the gathering of beasts that had felled Fay. Syaoran didn’t want to see what was within. He wanted Kurogane to cut down every last one of the things, but he didn’t want to see Fay lying there, cold and done and dead.

One by one, they fell to Kurogane’s blade as the man screamed wordlessly, letting loose bestial howls of sorrow.

Within the circle of monsters, a slight glow emerged, and grew stronger with every demon that evaporated after death. The crowd dissipated, and Fay could be seen among the mass. The glow came from runes floating in the air and a shield keeping him safe from the demon’s claws.

A chunk was torn out of his arm and was bleeding profusely, but he was alive, and Syaoran collapsed to the dirt in relief. Mokona joyfully cried out Fay’s name and clapped her little hands.

“Kuro-sama…” Fay murmured at the sight of his lover, berserked and mad with grief.

The final monster fell, and so did the shield keeping Fay from Kurogane. Fay fearlessly approached the hunched, panting, and blood-soaked warrior, and touched his face gently.

The sword dropped from Kurogane’s hand, and the man, too, fell to the ground.

Fay laid down next to him and tucked Kurogane’s head under his chin. He soothed the distraught man, no longer screaming but silently sobbing with shoulders and chest heaving.

“Just breathe, Kuro-sama,” Fay instructed, his voice even and soft, “You’re okay, I promise, just breathe.”

“Thought you were dead,” Kurogane muttered, his voice hoarse from screaming.

“Shh, I’m alright. I promised I wouldn’t give my life away, didn’t I?”

“But something could still take it,” Kurogane mumbled miserably. 

He felt shame for losing himself like this again; he was a man now, not a child. But he would deal with loss of self-control later. Right now, he wanted to feel Fay, hear him breathe, listen to his heart beating.

“Yes, but I’ll fight whatever tries to. And so will you. I’m not worried as long as my Kuro-sama has my back.”


	5. Incubus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane summons a demon. Warnings for mild sexual content.

Summoning a demon was no problem at all. It was common knowledge to anyone with basic reading ability and there were no laws against it. Demons sometimes went rogue, sure, but most were perfectly willing to negotiate deals with humans or simply have a nice chat. And when something went wrong, there were demon hunters like Kurogane around to clean up the mess.

Kurogane didn’t call on any specific demon, only restricting the summoning to demons of a middling level of power. Nothing that could kill him, but something that could eliminate lower order demons with the snap of a finger. Chance would determine what demon heard and heeded his call.

“Oh, what a delightful morsel, calling me up like this!” The demon said as a greeting when it appeared in the summoning circle.

Just his luck. An incubus.

The demon was blonde, slender, and stunningly beautiful. He was dressed in robes of white and blue so sheer he may as well have been naked. His skin was pale, his eyes were sparkling and blue, and he looked soft and touchable. His waist tapered into a pretty curve Kurogane would have liked to feel with his hands. His belly, barely obscured by his sheer clothes, looked perfectly for licking cream off of. Kurogane dismissed these thoughts, though. Of course an incubus tempted him, that was their nature. Still…Kurogane had seen other incubi. This was one exceptionally attractive.

He floated above the floor at Kurogane’s shoulder height, his head tossed back and his arms askew as if he were reclining on a fainting couch. His robes trailed down to the floor like a waterfall of fabric, and the incline of the demon’s legs made the fabric ride up and expose his thighs. The cloth bunched up at his groin, obscuring his intimate bits. The tease made him all the more tempting.

Anybody else probably would have been happy to summon an incubus. Their price for services rendered was always sex, fun to be had for everyone, so long as the summoner was alright with being drained of energy for a few days afterwards.

But Kurogane did not have the inclination to feed an incubus. Sex was pleasure for humans, but it was life itself to a demon of this kind. Most approached humans they were interested in and made arrangements to be fed regularly. That was their choice. 

But plying favors in exchange for something necessary to live felt exploitative. It felt like stealing something the demon should willingly give. Kurogane wouldn’t take advantage.

“Sorry, you’re not what I’m looking for,” Kurogane said, then began the dismissal incantation.

“Huh? Wait a moment!”

Kurogane paused. Demons usually weren’t inclined to stick around in a summoning circle.

“Is there really nothing I can do for you?” the demon bit his lip, and maybe some men might find it cute, but Kurogane didn’t share the sentiment. He could see, plain as day, that it was an act put on to try and please him. Well, Kurogane wasn’t interested in acts.

“No. I’m going to send you away, now. Goodbye,” Kurogane said gruffly. The cutesy pout disappeared, and the demon now looked genuinely annoyed. Well, at least he was capable of sincerity.

“Please, Mr. Black! If you don’t want to have sex with me, we can find some other price!” He was no longer reclining but clasping his hands in front of him plaintively.

The demon seemed to be pleading, which was strange beyond words. Usually it was humans beseeching demons, not the other way around.

Kurogane lowered the summoning tome, and the demon looked visibly relieved for a brief moment before smirking.

“See? Everybody wants to keep my kind around.” The demon returned to his previous floating pose as if nothing had disturbed him.

The demon tilted his wrist palm up and a glass of what Kurogane hoped was wine appeared in his hand. He took a sip, then said, “What is it you desire, mortal?”

“Imp extermination. My parent’s home has been taken over by imps and I want them all gone.”

The demon frowned. “That’s so boring. Don’t you have anything else for me?”

Kurogane raised the book again.

“Alright, I get it, one imp extermination coming up! As for the price…” the demon tapped his chin thoughtfully and Kurogane tapped his foot impatiently.

“Give me what I need.”

“Huh?”

The demon smiled wide enough so Kurogane could see his sharp canines. “You heard me.”

“What the hell? I don’t want to solve a riddle. Just tell me what you want!” Kurogane snapped.

“You think it’ll be that easy?” he chuckled, taking a generous sip of his drink before continuing, “Make me.”

Kurogane groaned in frustration. He should just dismiss the incubus and try again but something…something was telling him to keep this demon around. Something in his eyes. Something past his eyes.

_ Something deeply sorrowful. _

What did the demon need? He was an incubus so…sex. But the demon said they could find some other price, so wasn’t  _this_ the ‘other price?’ Or was the demon jerking him around and asking for sex anyway?

He hadn’t said what he ‘wanted.’ He asked for what he ‘needed.’

_ Something profoundly lonely. _

Ah, so that was it.

Kurogane walked towards the demon, stepped over the lines of the summoning circle, leaned over the reclining demon, and kissed him.

Fay. The demon’s name was Fay. Kurogane simply knew that the moment their lips touched and he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the demon had silently told him. It didn’t matter, because Fay’s lips felt like heaven and tasted like ambrosia.

Fay dropped his wine glass and it dissipated into nothingness. Kurogane felt his eerily cool fingers on the back of his neck. Kurogane cradled the demon as if dipping him during a waltz.

It was a perfectly chaste kiss, and Kurogane pulled away after only a short time. This is what the demon needed. Something gentle. Something honest. Something pure.

Blue eyes were half lidded and adoring and as they gazed at Kurogane.

“You have my name, you could summon me again,” the demon said, his words more a sigh than anything.

“You haven’t even kept your end of our first deal. Fay.” Kurogane’s voice was hard, but his hands on Fay’s face were as gentle as his kiss.

“Spells at this distance are simple fair for me. You’ll find your parents’ estate quite free of imps, Mr. Black. So if you have need of me again…”

“We’ll see,” Kurogane replied vaguely, with every intention of seeing this lonely, lovely incubus again.

“You’ll want to. Imps don’t group up naturally. Somebody sent them after your home. I could help you find the dastardly villain if you gave me a reason to.”

It sounded like an excuse to stay, when the demon didn’t need one. He’d already drawn Kurogane into his orbit, but was too insecure to see it. Gods above, Kurogane just wanted to protect this poor demon’s fragile heart.

“No. If you stay, it’ll be because you want to,” Kurogane asserted.

“Then…I want to stay with you.”


	6. Strong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane is afraid and that's alright.

_ The kid fell first. He threw himself in front of a fatal strike meant for the princess. But his sacrifice meant nothing as she fell shortly after him. _

_ Then, the meat bun. Tiny, innocent Mokona was crushed underfoot until she was no more, just dust on the wind. _

_ They took their time with Fay, though. Because Kurogane loved him. Because he would mourn for the kid and the princess and the meat bun, would carry the weight of their loss for the rest of his days, but without Fay… _

_ Fay was… _

**_ Fay _ **

Kurogane didn’t wake up dramatically. He didn’t throw himself out of bed and gasp for breath. He was too well-trained for that. Besides, Fay’s warm weight against his chest kept him pinned.

Fay was here, in his arms, and everything was fine. If the mage was undisturbed in his sleep, then there was no threat to worry about. If a hostile presence approached, Fay would sense the magical and Kurogane would sense the mundane. They were  _safe_.

But Kurogane couldn’t stay still. He needed to be sure.

He adjusted Fay until he was resting on the pillow, then got up. He checked their hotel room, every nook and cranny, then did the same for Syaoran’s and Mokona’s room. Both of them were also slumbering peacefully. Everything was fine.

_ They were all safe. _

When Kurogane returned, Fay was awake and waiting for him, cross-legged on the bed.

“What’s going on?” Fay asked drowsily.

“Nothing, just checking the perimeter,” Kurogane gruffly replied.

Fay watched him closely as Kurogane returned to bed. He did not lie back down when Kurogane pulled the sheets on his side of the bed back. Sensing that Fay had something to say, Kurogane leaned against the headboard and waited.

“You’re such a hypocrite, Kuro-sama.”

“Huh?” Kurogane snapped. He didn’t know what to expect, but it hadn’t been  _that_.

“You don’t want  _me_  keeping things locked up inside and hiding it all behind a smile, but  _you_  do the same thing. You worry about all of us, then keep your worries hidden behind your scary face. That’s a bit contradictory, don’t you think?”

Kurogane wanted to argue, but he couldn’t deny Fay’s words outright. There were things he didn’t allow to show through. Vulnerability. Fear. Weakness. He was not a liar, not even to himself, and he couldn’t lie and say Fay was completely wrong.

Fay continued despite Kurogane’s silence.

“I know it hurts to hide things,” he quietly murmured, “I don’t want Kuro-sama to hurt, not like I did for so long. Please.”

Kurogane was defeated by Fay’s whispered plea.

“I had a dream,” he confessed and felt like an idiot, “Demons killed you, the kids, and the meat bun. I went to make sure everyone was safe. That’s all.”

“That’s not all,” Fay sharply denied, and was right once again, “You’re having dreams about demons just after you asked me to come home with you. That’s not a coincidence.”

Kurogane felt a mixture of pride and annoyance at the newly explicitly invested Fay. The mage’s love for their family was no longer veiled by his attempts at deceit and distance. Nothing held him back from caring for the people he loved any longer, and Kurogane knew all too well that love was sometimes merciless.

He’d done just the same for Fay, after all.

Fay curled himself into Kurogane’s chest. Kurogane suspected his slow, deliberate breathing was very much on purpose so Kurogane could hear it and feel it and remember that everything was alright.

“It’s okay to hurt and break down. You don’t have to be strong for us all the time. I’m strong, too, thanks to you. You lifted my burdens, so let me take on a few of yours, Kuro-sama.”

Kurogane may have been underestimating Fay. The mage had spent so long being broken that Kurogane feared he would shatter all over again. But Fay wasn’t the man he once was, Syaoran wasn’t a fragile child, and Mokona wasn’t nearly as naive as she seemed, and it was about time Kurogane realized that.

“I don’t want them to take you, too,” he confessed softly into Fay’s hair.

“They won’t.” Fay’s voice had all the strength Kurogane’s lacked. “No creature of magic can touch me, I promise you.”

It wasn’t arrogance to say so. Kurogane knew Fay was powerful, more powerful than he fully understood. It was simple fact that when it came to magic, Fay was untouchable.

Fay would be alright and they would make sure the kids,  _all of them_ , would be alright, too.

“Take me home, Kuro-sama.”

“I will, mage. I promise.”


	7. Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane hits Fay with his car, and it's not entirely an accident. Warnings for suicidal ideation.

Kurogane paced in the waiting room, wringing his hands and chewing on his nails. He’d fucked up,  _really_  fucked up.

He hadn’t even seen the man before hitting him. He hadn’t been there until he  _was_  and he was rolling over Kurogane’s windshield. He’d been alive when the paramedics got to the scene, which was a small comfort. He’d been battered and bleeding and-

“Sir? You brought in the car accident victim, correct?” a nurse was talking to him, and it took a few tries to understand what she was saying.

“Yes, I-I brought him in,” he answered.

“He’s asking for you.” The nurse’s tone made it clear she didn’t think too highly of him, but had to do as her patient requested.

“He’s alright, then?” Kurogane asked, relieved. Unless he was on his deathbed and he wanted to curse Kurogane’s name before passing on, oh God, that’s what this was-

“He has a bruised spine and some internal bruising, but he’s going to be alright. You weren’t going very fast when you hit him.”

Right. He’d been at a stop sign and had only just gotten going when the man appeared in front of him.

“Why does he want to see me?” Kurogane asked. The nurse shrugged.

“Please follow me,” she said instead of answering. Kurogane wondered if her bedside manner was this sour.

The blonde man was lying on a hospital bed, the covers tucked up to his chest, which did not conceal the back brace he was bound to. He had an IV attached to him, for pain medication most likely, and a smile on his face when Kurogane entered the room.

“Oh-ho! I didn’t think my almost-killer would be so handsome!”

The flirting made Kurogane stop for a moment in his tracks, and the sour nurse had to nudge him to get him out of the doorway so she could leave. She shut the door behind her and left them to it.

“Seriously?” Kurogane grumbled. Not only was he blind to oncoming cars, he was also apparently an idiot. Who flirted while admitting they were almost killed by the person they were flirting with?

“Why am I here?” Kurogane asked before the man could say anything more. He could tell by the smarmy grin on the man’s face that his next comment was about to be just as inappropriate.

But Kurogane’s interruption seemed to remind him of why they were there. His grin flickered a little.

“I…wanted to apologize. I kind of ruined your day, didn’t I?”

Kurogane blinked. And blinked again.

“I hit you with my car and you’re apologizing to  _me_?”

“Yeah, well, I meant to walk into the street. You didn’t mean to hit me.”

Something tugged at Kurogane’s insides, somewhere near his chest. Did that mean…?

“Don’t look at me like that, I know it was stupid,” the man clarified. Kurogane wondered if his shock and worry was that obvious. He was usually good at maintaining his gruff exterior. At least to the point where strangers couldn’t read him. Either Kurogane was getting rusty, or this man was more perceptive than he let on.

He shouldn’t have been as worried as he was over this particular stranger, but there was a vulnerability to him that screamed a need for help at Kurogane. Years of being a big brother, then years on the police force, drove the instinct to protect the small and vulnerable into his very being. He couldn’t  _not_  care.

“At least you know that much. But something put you in front of my car and I can’t ignore that. You need to talk to someone about this.”

The man’s face twisted at the suggestion. He couldn’t quite read the expression but it was somewhere between revulsion and terror.

“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” the man muttered, “My brother said that too.”

There was suddenly such a profound sadness about the man that Kurogane understood with being told that his brother was dead. Only the loss of someone beloved could bring the certain melancholy now dragging the injured man down.

“Sounds like a smart guy, your brother,” Kurogane commented, and the man smiled a little.

“Yeah,” he said with great fondness.

“He’d want you to be alright, wouldn’t he?”

The man nodded, not bothering to ask how Kurogane knew to speak of his brother in the past tense. He had to know he wore his sorrow like a heavy cloak.

“So let’s try and make you alright.”


	8. Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane and Fay tell each other secrets. Warnings for explicit sexual content.

Syaoran had developed a sixth sense of sorts. He seemed to know when Kurogane and Fay needed some time to themselves and was always willing to spend a little extra money to get a second hotel room when that sense cropped up.

Tonight was a night like that. The last world hadn’t been the most hospitable. Kurogane had spent a good deal of their time there in a jail cell, and when they’d been swept up by magic taking them away, Kurogane had ended up on the opposite side of the city than Fay, Syaoran, and Mokona in the world they were now in.

Though Mokona’s magic was ever-reliable, Fay had panicked over the possibility they had left Kurogane behind by accident. Out of desperation, and in defiance of Kurogane’s request for Fay to be cautious with his magic in unknown worlds, he’d sent up a pulse of magic into the air to burst into an explosion of colors.

Kurogane had found them soon after, and thankfully anyone that saw the explosion thought it was some rogue fireworks. The result was a very clingy mage attached to his ninja.

So Syaoran gave them their privacy.

They took a shower together first. The jail cell had not been kind to Kurogane and he smelled of sweat.

_“But I like Kuro-sama’s manly-man smell!”_

Kurogane wasn’t surprised at all when Fay hopped into the shower with him. He would have preferred a bath, but the hotel lacked the necessary facilities, so they made do.

Fay leaned into Kurogane’s arms, let him wash his blonde locks with gentle fingers, let their wet skin touch everywhere he could press himself closer. Kurogane felt Fay’s hardness against him, could feel his own blood rushing south, but they had a history of failing at shower sex, so satisfaction would have wait until they were clean and in bed.

They didn’t bother to redress once they were done. There wasn’t much point to it.

Fay’s hair fanned out on the pillow when he fell back onto the bed. Kurogane liked it best this way, let loose from its ponytail and allowed to tumble down past Fay’s shoulders. It made him look less careful, less defensive, and as free as Kurogane wanted him to be.

Kurogane laid his body over Fay’s, one hand slipping a finger into him and the other supporting himself. Fay shuddered and sighed, relaxing and allowing Kurogane do as he wished.

Fay did a lot more sighing than moaning, more whispering endearments than begging for more. Kurogane kept things slow. He wanted Fay to  _feel_  and  _enjoy_  and not worry about anything at all.

“Good, Kuro-sama. Feels good. Soft, like you.”

Kurogane grunted at the light tease but didn’t deny it. The only one that made him so soft was Fay. The mage could get away with saying it. At least, he was when he said it as a pleasured sigh.

He sheathed himself inside of Fay; slow and tender. They did not hurry towards the end and pleasure wasn’t what they were chasing after. Fay just wanted to be close, and Kurogane just wanted to love his mage.

“Kuro-sama, tell me a secret,” Fay murmured. His hands lazily explored Kurogane’s back, tracing scars with his scarred fingertips. Intimacy was what the mage was after. Intimacy of all kinds.

Kurogane circled his hips and thought to himself. What hadn’t he yet revealed to the mage? Fay waited patiently, making little kitten mewls at Kurogane’s ministrations.

“I like your hair best when you leave it down,” he confessed quietly. He pulled out and oh-so-slowly inserted himself back in, letting Fay feel every inch that entered him.

“That’s not a secret,” Fay breathlessly giggled, “It’s so obvious. You always kiss my hair when I leave it down.”

Kurogane nuzzled Fay’s neck to hide his blush. Fay felt his heated skin anyway and laughed brightly.

“Then…I stay up after you fall asleep. To watch you. Sometimes I tell you that I love you when you can’t hear it.”

“Mean, Kuro-sama, to keep that from me,” Fay was laughing again but his voice took on a higher pitch that told Kurogane he was tearing up. Kurogane didn’t let them fall, instead kissing them away from Fay’s shut eyelids.

Kurogane spilled inside of his lover, and Fay followed soon after. There wasn’t so much as an orgasmic high as a soft sigh to end soft lovemaking.

Fay was half asleep by the time Kurogane had him clean and kicked the wet and sullied sheets away. He was loose and pliable. So content and relaxed, he was like a cat sitting in a patch of sun.

Kurogane knew better than to ask Fay to reciprocate in revealing a secret. Fay’s secrets would not be pried from him, and Kurogane would never risk damaging him by trying to break open the locks on his heart. He trusted that Fay was truly making an effort to open up and be honest. He’d seen Fay’s progress bit by bit. He refused to rush things just to sate his own curiosity.

But as well as Kurogane had come to know Fay, he still surprised Kurogane from time to time.

“I still want to drink your blood sometimes,” Fay confessed quietly, “My magic can’t burn away all of Kamui’s blood, I think. Vampirism is more potent than I thought it would be.”

“If you need to, go ahead.”

“It’s not a need, really. Maybe it’s a residual thing and will fade with time. I don’t feel weak like I used to when I refused your blood.”

Kurogane grunted, not much wanting to go back to that time in their lives.

“I made a promise, remember? I won’t be throwing my life away. I’d tell you if it was a problem.”

Kurogane nodded, trusting that oath. Fay had kept it so far.

Then, Fay was asleep, and Kurogane whispered, ‘I love you,’ before succumbing to his dreams.


	9. Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuui is gone and someone isn't going to let that stand. Warnings for mild gore.

Kurogane bowed his head and pressed his hands together. On his knees in supplication, he focused his thoughts towards the enshrined man before him, and began to speak.

“Hey, moron,” he began, “It’s been two years, now. I…”

 _I still miss you_.

Kurogane didn’t say it, though. He never did, and he could only hope that Yuui heard his silent prayers. Even after his husband was gone, Kurogane still found himself unable to say everything he wanted to say. He supposed he should be frustrated that even Yuui’s death wasn’t enough to force him to speak his feelings honestly, but the empty gulf that had opened up within him drained such things out of him.

“Wait for me, alright? It’s still gonna be awhile before I see you, so be patient.”

Kurogane had absolute faith that he and Yuui would be reunited, but that day was far off. He refused to live anything less than a full life. Yuui would be disappointed otherwise.

He raised his head and touched the picture of Yuui on the small altar, then gently kissed the wedding band on his ring finger.

It was a small, innocuous silver band. Yuui had gotten the bright idea during their honeymoon to cast a little charm on their matching rings. Once, Kurogane had felt the steady thump of Yuui’s heartbeat through it, and it had been a source of comfort, a constant reminder of the heart that loved him beating always.

But it had stopped thrumming two years past, and now only served as a reminder of what he’d lost. He never removed it. He would never forget his failure to save his husband’s life, that rainy day on the highway. 

Kurogane closed the altar’s doors and shuffled to the side. He opened a second altar next to Yuui’s and again, bowed his head and prayer.

“Keep looking out for him up there. You know how much of an idiot he is, yeah?”

Kurogane had never met Fay, and never would, but there was no one left to pray for him after Yuui passed, so Kurogane did so in Yuui’s place. It seemed to cruel to leave a child so young without anyone to remember him, without a few prayers sent his way.

His prayers done, Kurogane stood and went about another fruitful, lonely day.

* * *

 

That night, he was awoken from sleep by a tiny thrum.

It was weak, but it was strange enough to startle Kurogane awake. Because it shouldn’t have happened.

Another pulse came from the ring, then another followed soon after it.

Kurogane stared at the silver sheen on the band. A manic, hopeful thought came to him, then he immediately quashed it.

The ring then set a steady rhythm of pulses exactly at the beat of a heart.

Kurogane ripped it off of his finger and tossed it across the room.

The charm had to be malfunctioning. It must have degraded after Yuui’s death and was now broken.

Or maybe someone else was wearing it.

The thought sickened Kurogane. Had someone stolen the ring from Yuui’s grave? He thought of a stranger’s hands groping at Yuui’s bones, stealing from him, and was out of bed and dressed before he could finish the thought.

He drove to the cemetery and approached Yuui’s grave, and realized his fears were true. The grave was dug out and the wood coffin within was thrown open. Even the bones were gone.

“Fuck!” he swore, kicking the dirt piled next to the grave. Who had done this? Who had robbed his husband’s grave of everything, even the earthly remains entombed here? What kind of low-down, scum-sucking-

“Kuro-sama?”

The voice was drowsy, slow, and oh-so familiar. Kurogane didn’t dare turn around, because there was no way and he would only have his heart broken when there was no one-

“Kuro-sama…”

Kurogane turned and there he was.

He was naked and covered in dirt and his legs were bones.

His face was intact and framed by grimy blonde hair, but from his knees down, his legs were skeletal. From his knees up, he was skinless muscle and fat. At his hips, he was whole and unblemished.

As Kurogane stared, he saw the flesh crawl downwards and slowly grow. Yuui was turning from skeleton to man right before his eyes.

“He’s going to be confused for a while, but he definitely remembers you. That’s good, sometimes they don’t remember anything when they change.”

Kurogane looked away from his dazed and regrowing husband and found the source of the new, young sounding voice. And again, he didn’t know how to comprehend what he was seeing.

Fay was exactly as he looked in his picture on the altar. The tiny child stood no higher than Kurogane’s knee and unlike Yuui, he was whole and clean, dressed in white and looked perfectly angelic.

“What,” he flatly said. This was beyond his ability to understand. He didn’t know if he should be happy or horrified so he felt nothing at all.

“It’s going to be alright,” Fay assured, “Vampire blood is an amazing substance, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Vampire?” Kurogane dully inquired.

Fay nodded. “I was changed shortly after I died, but my progenitor took me away. She wanted a child of her own, but vampires are infertile, so she made one the only way she knew how. I got away from her last year, and I’ve been finding my way back here ever since.”

“And you found out that your brother had died,” Kurogane filled in for Fay.

Fay’s face become overcome with grief. Such an expression did not belong on the face of a child, then Kurogane remembered that this was a fully grown man trapped in a child’s body. Such things had suddenly become an ineffable part of his reality.

“I couldn’t-I searched for so long. I wanted him back. Vampire blood can create life even from bones.”

Kurogane returned his gaze to Yuui, who was almost whole now. The misty-eyed confusion had abated somewhat, and he was now looking around. Realization dawned when he spotted his brother.

“Fay? Fay!”

Kurogane was unbothered by Yuui going to his brother first. He didn’t expect any different. He knew that despite having so little time together, Yuui felt his brother’s loss like a lost limb. No, worse than that, he felt it like a lost part of his own soul. He could wait for Yuui to notice him, he deserved this moment with his brother.

Yuui embraced Fay, kneeling in the dirt and scooping the child up. He sobbed and screamed Fay’s name, and Fay listened to it all silently, doing his best with his tiny arms to pat Yuui’s hair.

“I’m here, Yuui. We can be together, all three of us, if that’s what you want.”

“Three of us?” Yuui looked around and noticed Kurogane again. He released Fay and came to Kurogane.

“Kuro-sama!” he chirped happily, “Why are you hanging out in graveyards with Fay? Did you bring him back?”

It hit Kurogane suddenly. This was  _Yuui_. Yuui was here and alive and almost whole except for a few bony toes. He was smiling and talking and laughing and  _alive_.

Kurogane sobbed and embraced Yuui. He was embraced in return and Yuui’s softly asked, “Why are you crying, Kuro-sama? Did something happen?”

“You-You,” he stammered, then gave up. This was too much and everything he had wanted for two years and he couldn’t-

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” Kurogane repeated it again and again until he lost his voice. Over Yuui’s shoulder, he saw Fay smile fondly, and Kurogane’s declarations of love were overtaken by thanking Fay over and over and over.

“You can stay with us, too, Kurogane. Forever.”

Kurogane had promised himself he wouldn’t die over Yuui’s passing, but he found it surprisingly easy to die so he could stay with him.


	10. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two children are recovered from the fields of battle and Kurogane makes a promise.

Kurogane liked to watch the soldiers return from battle. His father’s army was the strongest in the world and always returned triumphant, marching to the sounds of war horns and proudly touting his kingdom’s banner.

But today was different. Today, there were no horns blaring, no banners waving. They’d received word days ago about their victory over Valeria’s army, but the soldiers didn’t look triumphant at all. From his balcony overlooking the palace courtyard, Kurogane couldn’t see a shred of pride for their victory in a single soldier’s face.

His father usually read the reports from the generals on the battlefront with Kurogane on his lap, but he hadn’t done that even once during the whole campaign in Valeria. Kurogane never thought for a moment that their army was losing, they simply couldn’t because his father led them and his father was the best man in the world, but he knew something terrible had been happening during the fighting. 

His father always looked so sad as he read his general’s messages.

He knew he shouldn’t have dashed off from his balcony towards the war room, and he shouldn’t be listening in from a room above through the hole in the chimney stack he’d carved when he was six. Sound traveled very well through the chimney, though, and he wanted to know. He was ten years old now and he didn’t like his father keeping things from him. He could handle anything and he’d prove it.

“…dumped their fallen into pits, then used foul magic to make the corpses fight for them. It became a matter of finding the necromancers and ending them instead of fighting the hordes of the dead they summoned.”

“We found the necromancers sequestered in a tower, and they were…”

A choked sound.

“They were…Gods, they’re just  _children_.”

Someone else picked up the story where the other man could not continue.

“They were sapping the magic from the children and transferring it into the corpses. That’s what made them rise. They have a truly astounding pool of magic, my lord. They fueled life into thousands of corpses.”

Kurogane’s father spoke quietly, saying something Kurogane couldn’t hear.

“They are alive, and your lady wife is caring for them personally. Her Ladyship believes they will pull through, but it will take time for them to heal, even with her magic.”

Mother was caring for someone herself? Her magic was their kingdom’s most precious gift, as she maintained the barrier that protected their capital. Using it for anything else was rare indeed and only happened in the most dire of circumstances.

Kurogane didn’t listen any further. He knew exactly what he needed to do to prove himself to his father.

* * *

 

Finding the children the generals had spoken of was easy. If they needed healing, then they would be in the healing chambers, and if mother was attending to them, then they’d be in the private healing rooms.

Only one of the rooms was protected by armed guards, and Kurogane avoided them by taking the passage from his mother’s office to the private chambers. Only his mother kept a key to the secret passages, but Kurogane knew where it was hidden.

He snuck into the room and closed the wall hiding the passage, and was struck stupid by a flash of light the moment he turned around.

“Who are you?” a shaky, straining voice demanded to know.

“Crown Prince Kurogane!” he answered, rubbing at his face. He was supposed to say more when he formally introduced himself, but he always forgot the rest. 

The spell hadn’t been anything impressive, more flash than impact, and Kurogane was standing again quickly.

He’d heard tell of ‘children,’ but he only saw one child in the bed. Small, blonde, blue-eyed and very, very angry. His little hand was trembling as it reached out, fingers splayed and glowing in warning. 

“He won’t hurt us,” a much weaker voice said from somewhere behind the child.

The child dropped his arm, but not his glare.

“He’s important, Yuui. Someday, he’ll be very important to you,” the quiet voice continued. The child turned his back on Kurogane and hushed whoever the speaker was.

“Don’t talk, Fay. Just sleep.”

When Yuui was distracted, Kurogane approached and climbed onto the bed. Yuui flinched and clenched his fist, but a hand emerged from a bundle of blankets and touched his hand. It uncurled and linked together with its match.

“He’s going to protect us, Yuui.”

The second speaker, Fay apparently, was another blonde child, identical to the first. He was lying down and nearly hidden completely from view by sheets with his face peering out at Kurogane.

“You will, won’t you?” Fay asked, but Kurogane got the sense he wasn’t really  _asking_. More like he was confirming something he already knew. His mother’s apprentice, Tomoyo, talked like that sometimes, too.

“Of course!” Kurogane had already decided to. He’d wanted to prove himself to his father, but now he just wanted to protect them. They looked they needed someone to, and Kurogane felt like he was supposed to do it. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name.

“But, uh, what the hell happened to you?” he asked, using one of the bad words he wasn’t supposed to say. But if he was going to protect these two, then they should know he was old enough to use adult words.

They exchanged a look, and Fay nodded. Yuui nodded back, then said.

“The lords took our magic,” Yuui explained. He lifted his robes and Kurogane saw that his stomach was caved in like a hollow beneath his ribs. Like he had no guts there at all and was empty. Kurogane’s own stomach threatened to abandon him.

“We need out magic to live, and they tried to take it all to put it into the dead people,” Yuui continued, “It made us sick. We’re going to be sick for a long time. Maybe forever.”

“But it’s alright. You’re going to keep us safe,” Fay asserted.

Yuui smiled, and Kurogane felt like the sun just turn on but the stars remained in the sky, and all the beauty in the heavens had gathered together for this one, perfect moment.

Kurogane read that in one of Tomoyo’s stupid, sappy books. But it didn’t seem so stupid anymore.


	11. Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fay meets his twin again and Kurogane faces the fallout.

It was going to happen eventually. After meeting versions of Tomoyo and her guard and the kid’s sovereign in other worlds, it was inevitable.

Kurogane prepared himself for the day he found a version of himself that grew up happily with his parents. Syaoran accepted that he may find a version of himself allowed to be with the girl he loved. But Fay…He was only barely beginning to drag himself away from his past. He was entirely unprepared for what may come.

It happened in a world that would otherwise bleed into the dozens of others just like it in Kurogane’s mind. It was a bustling city with a thousand faces passing by at any moment, where the air smelled like sweat and smog. Kurogane was always happy to leave world like this behind them. He preferred the open air and small villages with personalities all their own.

The mage didn’t so much prefer worlds like this as much as he thrived in them. He was the sort that stood out from the crowd whereas Kurogane was the kind to get lost in the bustle.

Fay liked little, lost villages as much as Kurogane did, but he didn’t do well in the quiet. In the city’s noise, he could lose himself.

Until they found a small, pleasant cafe to pop into to rest their feet, and they were greeted by a man wearing Fay’s face.

“Oh, Yuui! I didn’t know you and Kurogane would be coming in. I thought you’d gone to see a movie?”

From her hiding spot in the hood of Kurogane’s sweater, Mokona gave a tiny noise of sympathetic misery.

Fay’s smile was as sharp as shattered glass, and his eyes were glazing over. It was an old expression Kurogane thought had been left in the past, but instead had just been buried deep by the look of it.

“Ah, we…ran into Syaoran!” Fay clambered for something to explain the apparent disparity they were creating by being here. Kurogane groaned, it was a weak excuse that would only raise more questions when this world’s Fay spoke to his own twin.

But the silver tongue that usually bought them free rooms at hotels and jobs with no resumes had turned to ash in Fay’s mouth.

“Oh, I see,” the barista smiled charmingly. It was an open and honest smile that suited this man well, just as it suited Kurogane’s own Fay well when he wore it.

Though this man was clearly not another version of Kurogane’s lover. This was someone far more painful to see. This was a vision of lost prospects, of what should have been had the universe not damned the mage into a life of misery. This was the face of a boy Kurogane had only known in a vision, a child who had been damned by virtue of his birth. A child Kurogane mourned because his lover did, someone he wished had lived if only to spare the man he loved such great agony.

“We’re just stopping in, we’ll be off now!” Fay hastily excused them.

“Are you sure? Sit down for a while, I’ll make you some hot chocolate with extra whip cream. And black coffee for Kurogane, of course,” this world’s Fay offered generously.

Fay was on the verge of collapse, so Kurogane wrapped an arm around his waist and grunted, “We were only passing by. Gonna go see a later showing with the kid.” He hoped the explanation made sense, and apparently did because the barista nodded. He also didn’t bat an eye at Kurogane’s arm around Fay, so this world’s versions of them were close as well. Good, that’s the way it should be.

“I’ll see you at home then, Yuui. Have fun!”

As soon as they were far enough away from the cafe to not draw the barista’s eye, Kurogane pulled Fay out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. Syaoran stood at the entrance to the small alley they’d ducked into and turned his back to give them a bit of privacy, holding a fussing Mokona.

Fay would have collapsed to the concrete had Kurogane’s arms not wrapped around him.

“I have you. It’s gonna be okay, you’re going to be okay,” Kurogane whispered into Fay’s hair. He nuzzled Fay in slow, tender circles, murmuring comfort he wasn’t sure Fay could even hear.

“He…he seemed happy right? He was happy, wasn’t he?!” Fay manically sobbed, his voice cracking with sorrow and raw panic.

“Of course he was happy. He’s living a good life in this world,” Kurogane assured.

Fay had seemingly exhausted his ability to speak with those few words, and could only sob into Kurogane’s embrace.

Sometimes, the old fury that had risen up so long ago when his mother died, the one that drove him to just kill  _kill **kill**  _rose up in him all over again when he thought of Fay’s lost brother. Of the staggering loss Fay had suffered and the unjust, repulsive way he’d been lost. It made him want to shred the people that had wronged them to pieces, but every one of them were long dead. He was almost sorry about that, because now there was no justice to be had for the twins’ sake.

There were worlds like this that proved the people of Valeria wrong. Fay and Yuui were not cursed existences. They had the same right to happiness that everyone else did.

Kurogane knew it was going to be an uphill struggle, but on his own life, he was going to give Fay happiness.


	12. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane doesn't sleep until Fay does.

The cicadas used to keep Fay awake at night. Neither Valeria nor Celes had much in the way of insect life; they were both far too cold. Nihon summers were warm and their nights were filled with cicada song. It took some getting used to.

And when Fay couldn’t fall into a deep, dark sleep, he dreamed. His dreams were rarely kind to him.

Kurogane was a light sleeper and was never more thankful for that than when the slightest of rustlings disturbed his sleep, caused by Fay twitching and grasping at him.

In time, when they regularly shared a bed after their long journey ended and settling down, Kurogane found the best ways to assure neither the insects nor dreams bothered his lover.

He watched. In the moments just before Fay drifted off, he watched him. He touched him and felt the tension in his muscles ease away. He looked upon his face and saw him slip into a dreamless sleep.

On the nights when dreamless sleep evaded him, he gently called him back into wakefulness and let him settle down once again until his sleep was peaceful. If Fay was aware of this in his half-exhausted state, he never mentioned in the following morning.

Besides, it was hardly a burden to look at Fay. He wasn’t the sort to extol the beauty of his lover, out loud at least, but Fay was  _beautiful_.

Fay didn’t call him out on it for a long time. But eventually, he caught on.

“You always fall asleep after me,” Fay casually commented early in the evening as they wandered among the sakura trees in Tomoyo’s garden.

Kurogane grunted, knowing anything he said would be giving himself away. Fay was too clever for Kurogane to evade.

“I noticed last night when I was practicing my calligraphy. You refused to go to bed until I finished. So I kept insisting I had a few more to practice and you still wouldn’t sleep.”

Of course Fay rooted him out with some plot of his. He cursed himself for not noticing and chalking it up to Fay wanting to learn as quickly as possible. He’d been anxious about presenting himself at court the following week, so he hadn’t thought anything unusual.

“Care to tell me why?” Fay’s smile was patient and lovely. He didn’t think anything suspicious of Kurogane’s behavior, he was simply curious. Kurogane warmed with his absolute trust. It had been so hard to earn and so worth it.

“I watch you sleep.” Well, that was the worst possible way to say it.

Fay looked at him with mixed bafflement and glee. Kurogane could almost  _hear_ him queuing up taunts in his head.

“No, not in a weird way!” he defensively added before Fay could get going. Fay smirked at him, waiting for further explanation. Most likely to arm himself with more fuel to throw back at Kurogane. The brat.

“I know you don’t sleep well. So I stay up and make sure you fall asleep and aren’t having nightmares. That’s all.”

He said it dismissively, as if the confession didn’t clearly mean the world to Fay. His lips parted in shock and his eyes sparkled. He smiled and ceased their walk through the trees to throw his arms around Kurogane.

Kurogane held him gently. Sometimes Fay needed Kurogane to be gruff and strong, sometimes he needed Kurogane to be soft and warm. Right now, he needed warmth to remember why Kurogane did the things he did for Fay.

He was far too accustomed to the cold for someone so bright.


	13. Proud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fay says what needs to be said. Warnings for explicit violence and moderate gore.

Kurogane was expecting a dingy basement or an abandoned warehouse. Instead the ransom note led him to an ornate and sprawling estate in the upper-class part of town.

“They’re holding him here?” Syaoran asked doubtfully. He checked the address again and matched it to the house. He shook his head in confusion.

“Maybe they invited him for tea and this is all a biiiig misunderstanding!” Mokona chirped.

“The mage wouldn’t joke about this,” Kurogane gruffly countered. He wouldn’t pretend he was in danger or fake an oncoming threat. He knew what threats to  _his people_  did to Kurogane. He wouldn’t play around like this.

The entire situation was strange. They’d been browsing the local library for books on clone-related magic and Kurogane lost sight of Fay for only a few heartbeats. Fay was gone in that time, leaving no trace but a note demanding they come to this address with 200 gold coins, the money exchanged in this world.

They didn’t bring any money, of course. Only their blades.

“Let’s go. The mage is probably half way to escaping, and I don’t want to deal with his smug face when he saves himself.”

Syaoran laughed uncomfortably. He wasn’t so sure about that and knew Kurogane wasn’t either.

They approached the house, and when they drew close, Syaoran shuddered and Mokona squeaked,

“This place is bad!”

“Huh?” Kurogane looked over his shoulder at them. He hadn’t felt a thing.

“Oh, no. No. Kurogane-san, this is  _really_  bad! I remember this magic!”

Kurogane turned fully towards the kid and folded his arms, waiting for further explanation. He had a blind spot when it came to magic and he’d tried to learn a thing or two from the mage and the kid, but it never clicked for him. He relied on the steel in his palm and the ground beneath his feet. For all his respect for the magic the women of his country performed, he didn’t understand it.

“We felt a spell exactly like this. When Ashura made us relive Fay-san’s memories. This is the nullifying spell on the tower.”

* * *

 

It was impossible. It should have been impossible. Valeria and its people were dead and gone. Yet here they were, a dozen of them, alive and searing Fay with their hateful glares.

They had magic of their own, it was the only reason they were still alive. But they looked old and withered, their magic weaker than Fay’s and unable to sustain them as long. Only one of them remained young and vibrant, and she must have been the one who cast the nullification over the house.

He’d known from the moment she approached him in the library. He went willingly with her, willing to listen to her condemnations if it made her feel better about the destruction of their home. But he was attacked when he stepped outside, blindsided and blinded by fear and grief.

“The lookout said your friends just arrived,” the mage-girl said, looking towards the stairs leading upwards into the main house. She turned the knife in Fay’s left thigh in slow circles, stirring his muscles into a bloody slush. He groaned and coughed wetly. He’d been screaming too long to manage more than that.

He felt blood on his cheek, dripping from the head wound that knocked him out. He’d awoken strapped to a chair and in blinding agony. The aging mages were beating him while the mage-girl watched. One of them bit him and tore a chunk of flesh from his shoulder in a fit of rage.

Then the girl ordered them away and stabbed him through with a knife in each leg.

“I remember you,” he choked, hope flaring up at the news she delivered. If he could stall her he might survive this. “You set our room on fire.”

“I did,” she admitted easily. “You should have burned back then. I would have been a hero. You and that sinful tumor you called a brother should have died in your mother’s rotten womb. Everything would have been fine if you did.”

“Everything wasn’t fine. You married into a noble family, didn’t you?” Fay gurgled through a mouthful of blood. “Before that you were poor. You saw what the slums were like, people were  _starving_  and the nobility ignored them. Valeria was falling apart before we were born.”

Syaoran told him that. He found records of the dead kingdom in another world of magic, one with scholars that had been to Valeria and recorded what they’d seen. It was fraught with plagues and poor crop growth and an uncaring noble class for decades before Fay and Yuui were born.

He’d cried then, and he cried now.  _It wasn’t his and Fay’s fault_  and he could honestly say that to what remained of Valeria’s people.

Someone threw something at him. A loose brick, Fay saw it when it fell to the ground. It shattered his jaw. He moaned lowly and it only brought more pain.

“We won’t be swayed by your sinful words!” the brick-thrower screeched.

The mage-girl leaned away.

“I’m leaving now, and I’m going to kill your friends. Then, I’ll purge your sinfulness with fire.”

Fay shook his head violently, unable to speak a word. She probably thought he was silently pleading for her to stop, but that wasn’t what he meant. He was telling her  _No, you won’t kill my friends. Kurogane loves me and I’ve seen him fight for the people he loves. You can’t beat him._

* * *

 

Kurogane was itching to kill someone. Syaoran said magic had its signatures from the place it came from, and this was the same Valerian spell that once trapped Fay and his brother as children. Well, they couldn’t use magic either, and his and Syaoran’s swords would be more than enough.

If the people here were Valerian, were the people who tortured his lover and drove a child to suicide, Kurogane would kill them.

Someone was coming up the stairs, leading towards the basement they hadn’t checked yet. The rest of the house was clear of all signs of life, but not empty of signs of habitation. People were living here.

A girl appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked young, but Kurogane knew better than to be deceived. She had to be as old as Fay, perhaps even older, with powerful magic keeping her alive.

“I won’t bother with asking for the ransom. You came in here with swords drawn, after all. I was just curious to see if his life had a price.”

Syaoran directed his blade’s tip towards the girl. “Where is Fay-san?”

“If you paid,” she continued heedlessly, “you would have condemned yourselves to die. His life has no worth at all and if you thought it did, you would prove yourselves corrupted by his sinful influence.”

“Kurogane is very corrupted!” Mokona announced, unable to resist the opportunity to make jabs at her favorite target. Besides, she knew Fay would be just fine. Kurogane would protect him, without a doubt.

“Seriously?” Kurogane groaned. Syaoran maintained his stance and his glare in the girl’s direction.

“Did he tell you it wasn’t his fault, like he told me? He’s a liar, a snake,” she hissed venomously.

“He said it wasn’t his fault?” Kurogane grinned fiercely, so proud of Fay he could burst. He told one of the very people who once blamed him and cast him out, someone he once believed was right in calling him a sinner, that what happened to Valeria wasn’t his fault.

He loved Fay so fucking much.

“You’ve been corrupted, I see that now. I’m sorry for what I have to do.”

The knife was steady in the girl’s hand. It was already stained with blood,  _Fay’s_   _blood._ Her conviction to kill him was firm, and if she weren’t standing between him and his lover, Kurogane would have respected that. As it was, she wasn’t a person to him right now.

They found Fay standing in the middle of a sea of carnage. He was soaked in more blood than Kurogane and Syaoran and Kurogane kissed him anyway. He stood lopsided, one leg more injured than the other, but he was on his feet. His long claws were nearly fully sunk back into normal nails.

“Told you he’d be halfway to escaping on his own,” Kurogane said, barely audible as his face was pressed into Fay’s neck.

“Hardly,” Fay dismissed. “I only just healed enough to get moving. And now that the barrier’s down I won’t be getting out of here without some help.”

“I thought you weren’t a vampire anymore?” Syaoran asked. Mokona hopped from his shoulder to Fay’s and snuggled with the side of Fay’s face Kurogane wasn’t occupying.

“That’s not… _strictly_  true,” Fay hedged.

“Mage.”

“I’m not, really,” Fay continued at Kurogane’s short insistence. “The nullification suppressed my magic and let the vampire blood still in me ‘wake up.’ My magic’s back now, and the blood is dormant again. Kamui is a particularly powerful vampire, I couldn’t purge his blood completely.”

“I’m thankful for that. Looks like we owe him all over again,” Syaoran smiled and pushed himself into the group embrace.

“I’m proud of you,” Kurogane murmured too quietly for Syaoran to hear.

“I’m proud of me,” Fay returned as quietly. “It’s a little strange”

“Mokona is very happy Fay is safe. Can we go hug somewhere with less dead bodies?”


	14. Honesty

After joining the staff, Yuui not only became a regular sight at school, but in Kurogane’s apartment.

At first, he followed along with Fay when the man broke in and made himself at home, nervously scolding Fay and profusely apologizing to Kurogane for his brother’s behavior, but over time he put in solo appearances as well. Particularly after Kurogane gave up trying to keep Fay out and gave them both spare keys.

He usually popped up in Kurogane’s kitchen, sometimes already cooking something delicious when Kurogane woke up, sometimes he could be found sitting on Kurogane’s couch watching a movie. He explained he needed a respite from his brother, which Kurogane completely understood. They both loved the man, but he was so  _overwhelming_  at times.

Kurogane spent every conversation waiting for Yuui to do the usual protective brother thing and threaten the safety of Kurogane’s balls should he ever hurt Fay, but that conversation never came. They simply found themselves growing closer as friends and colleagues.

Then, Fay began to pull away.

There was a certain ebb and flow to Kurogane and Fay’s relationship. Sometimes Fay got nervous and reserved, sometimes he became so clingy it was maddening, and sometimes he became so desperate for affirmation that he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Kurogane became skilled at reading his moods, letting him have time to himself when he needed it and clinging just as hard back when Fay felt insecure. Fay kept Kurogane on his toes, but it was always worth it. The good times always outweighed the bad.

But Kurogane didn’t know what to make of Fay’s mood lately. He seemed withdrawn, tinged with sadness, and strangely…resigned. But Kurogane had no idea what he was resigned _to_.

So Kurogane went to Yuui and asked him what was going on, and Yuui smiled sadly.

“You need to talk to him about it. I did my part, but he needs to hear it from you, too.”

And with that, everything fell into place.

* * *

 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Kurogane asked after stepping into the twins’ apartment, currently only occupied by Fay. Yuui had given them space to talk and went out with Fuuma for the evening.

“Tell you what, Kuro-rin?” Fay asked with forced innocence and wide, blinking eyes.

Kurogane sighed and approached Fay, who was curled up on the couch with his knees to his chest. The television was paused on one of the terrible soap operas the twins loved watching. He sat down next to Fay and ruffled his hair.

“That you think I want to date your brother.”

Fay flinched, and Kurogane knew he had hit the mark dead on. Fay had begun pulling away; canceling dates and disappearing without a word when classes ended, after Yuui became as comfortable in Kurogane’s home as Fay was. The timing made Fay’s thoughts obvious.

“I don’t,” Kurogane said firmly, “Your brother is a friend and neither of us want more than that. I’m dating  _you_ , not him, and I have no plans to change that.”

Fay blinked, sighed, then fell into Kurogane’s lap. Kurogane let him snuggle in and ignored the moist drops welling up in Fay’s eyes and smearing onto Kurogane’s pants.

“I had three boyfriends in high school,” Fay explained quietly. Kurogane listened silently, stroking Fay’s hair.

“All of them broke up with me after they met Yuui, and all of them asked him out afterwards.”

Kurogane couldn’t imagine Yuui being happy about that either, and wasn’t surprised when Fay continued with, “He always slapped them, gave them hell for hurting me. He’s really scary when he’s mad.” Fay chuckled a little at the memory.

It was difficult to think of gentle, quiet Yuui as frightening, but Kurogane knew how much he loved his brother. If anything could draw a rage out of Yuui, it would be harm to Fay.

“They always liked him better, because he was easier to deal with.” Fay’s voice choked up at the end, and Kurogane tugged at his bangs playfully. “And since we look the same, they figured they could just replace me with him.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, but…ah, damn it,” Kurogane fumbled with his words and flushed with embarrassment, “but you’re my pain in the ass. And I…I love you the way you are. Okay?”

Fay turned and blinked up at Kurogane, slowly realizing what he’d just confessed. Kurogane looked anywhere but down at Fay.

Arms wrapped around him, and Fay babbled out, “I love you, too, Kuro-sama! I love you, I love you!” over and over until his words became a mushy mess of joyful tears and sobs.

Kurogane held him through it, blushing and muttering endearments so quietly they were almost inaudible. But Fay heard them. He heard every single one.

“Just…talk to me before running away next time, alright?” Kurogane requested.

“I…” Fay hesitated, “Yuui said that, too. That I was being silly and I needed to talk to you before making assumptions.”

“You should listen to him. He’s got his head screwed on straight, unlike you.”

Fay laughed and nodded. Kurogane sighed in relief, glad the compliment towards Yuui wasn’t taken as a sign of preference for him over Fay. This ridiculous little interruption was settled.

* * *

 

Years later, during the reception of Kurogane and Fay’s wedding, Kurogane asked the question he’d wanted to since he met Yuui.

“Why’d you never threaten to kill me if I hurt your brother?”

Yuui smiled and sipped his champagne casually. He fondly gazed at Fay, singing drunken songs with Yuuko and acting far more inebriated than he actually was, then turned back to Kurogane.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t.” 


End file.
